Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he would use weekend meetings of G-20 finance ministers to advance efforts to “rebalance” the world economy so it is less reliant on U.S. consumers, to move toward establishing “norms” on exchange-rate policy, and to persuade others the U.S. doesn’t aim to devalue its way to prosperity.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Geithner said the world sorely needs to agree on guidelines for exchange-rate policy. “Right now, there is no established sense of what’s fair,” he said.

He also said the U.S. is pressing the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations to adopt numerical gauges to judge whether individual trade surpluses or deficits are “sustainable,” a way to measure progress towards the goal of more balanced global growth.

‘The Rest of the World Wants Us to Save More’

Mr. Geithner is to meet G-20 counterparts in South Korea this weekend amid widespread skepticism about whether the organization of economies as diverse as Argentina, France and the U.S. can defuse exchange-rate tensions. Brazil’s finance minister has warned of “an international currency war.” India’s prime minister has said he is “worried about the global situation.” The governor of the Bank of England has warned of protectionism unless “the need to act in the collective interest” is recognized.

U.S. officials played down the likelihood of a substantial communique after Saturday’s meeting of finance ministers. The Koreans preferred to hold any major announcements for the November meeting of G-20 leaders in Seoul.

“People are trying to figure out what is in their self interest,” Mr. Geithner said. “It’s not a test you solve in two weeks. It’ll take three to five years. We want to move the G-20 toward an institution with more promise.”

On currencies, Mr. Geithner said, “We would like countries to move toward a set of norms on exchange rate policy.”

U.S. officials say conditions aren’t ripe for a global accord on currencies like the 1985 Plaza accord to push the dollar down. The goal, another senior Treasury official told reporters, is an agreement to “pursue a cooperative approach” that would, even without explicit pledges, lead China and smaller countries in its shadow to let their exchange rates appreciate.

Mr. Geithner divided world currencies into three groups. In one, he put countries with currencies “undervalued by any measure,” especially China. He said, though, that if the pace of appreciation seen since September were sustained, it would help correct the undervaluation. Other emerging-markets play a role, he said.

“If China knew that if it moved more rapidly, other emerging markets would move with them, it would be easier for them to move,” Mr. Geithner said.

In a second group, he put “emerging economies with flexible exchange rates that intervene or impose taxes to try to reduce the risks of significant overvaluation, of bubbles and of inflationary pressures.” The U.S. isn’t objecting to such efforts.

In the third group, he put “the major currencies, which are roughly in alignment now,” a suggestion that he sees no need for the dollar to sink more than it already has against the euro and yen. Mr. Geithner emphasized that the U.S. is not pursuing a deliberate policy of devaluing the dollar. Earlier this week, speaking in Palo Alto, Calif., he said that no country can “devalue its way to prosperity and competitiveness.”

Ultimately, a sounder global economy demands efforts to restrain trade surpluses in export-driven countries like China and reduce trade deficits in import-hungry countries like the U.S.

“The rest of the world wants us to save more—and that means less U.S. demand for the rest of the world. Demand is going have to come from other sources,” Mr. Geithner said.

G-20 countries agreed to norms for fiscal policy at their Toronto summit. Now the U.S. is seeking the same for the broadest measure of trade flows, current account balances.

“We’re encouraging our partners to put a little more flesh on the skeleton of the rebalancing commitment,” Mr. Geithner said. “We are exploring whether we can agree to commit to keep the external imbalances to levels that are more sustainable, making allowances for different kinds of countries, such as commodity producers.”

U.S. officials are hopeful that China, which projects that its current-account surplus will hover around 4% of gross domestic product in the next few years, will go along. But a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Yao Jian, said last week, “Other countries have no right to comment on what is a reasonable level for a country’s trade surplus.”

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